The present invention relates to a disk player and particularly relates to a multi-disk player in which a plurality of disks can be accommodated and desired ones of the accommodated disks can be successively selected to perform continuous playback of the selected disks.
As the disk player in which a plurality of disks can be continuously played back, a jukebox has been generally known. The conventional jukebox, however, has not been suitable for domestic use, because of a very large bulk of a body per se of the jukebox.
Recently, there have been developed and practically used various kinds of disks, called digital audio disks (hereinafter abbreviated to "DAD"), in which digital signals are recorded so that not only the quantity of information to be stored can be increased but generation of noises can be suppressed in reproducing, in comparison with audio disks in which signals are stored in the analog mode. Of these DADs, a so-called compact disk of about 12 cm outer diameter and of the type in which signals are recorded into and read out of the disk by using a laser beam, is simple to deal with and able to reduce the size of the whole disk player. Recently, there has been developed a multi-disk player which is optimum as a jukebox for domestic use which can accommodate a plurality of compact DADs to perform continuous play-back of these DADs. By the way, such a compact DAD has a information storing capacity of one hour play-back which is about 1.5 times of that of the conventional analog audio disk. Accordingly, in three compact DADs, it is possible to store about 60 musics on the assumption that each music takes about 3 minutes for play back and therefore it is easy to include desired musics for every category, such as jazz, Enka (a kind of Japanese song), etc.
Basically, a multi-disk player comprises: play-back means including a turntable, a pickup, etc.; a magazine demountably mounted at a predetermined mounting position in a player housing and for arranging and accommodating a plurality disks one by one at a predetermined pitch; and a disk conveying mechanism for selecting desired ones of said disks in the magazine one by one, for conveying the selected disks one by one from the magazine onto a disk carrying surface of the turntable, and for conveying the selected disks one by one from the disk carrying surface into the magazine.
In the already developed multi-disk player, the mounting/demounting of the magazine into/from the player housing is performed manually by the listener by pushing/pulling the magazine into/out of the player housing. Accordingly, the player has given the listener troublesome feeing.